Boston, Def Leppard, bad hair & the golden age of rock radio

Boston, Def Leppard, bad hair & the golden age of rock radio

Author: Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold February 17, 2026 Duration: 35:20

Paul Rees fell in love with AOR when it began with Boston in 1976, the polished, ramped-up hits that were briefly the music of the American heartland. His book ‘Raised On Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine & Payola – the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986’ remembers the age when records were launched via car stereos, their eternally appealing sound and the preposterous lives of the people who wrote and played them – Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Asia, REO Speedwagon, Don Henley and Toto among them. “It’s happy music,” he points out. “Music that makes you raise a quizzical eyebrow.” In the mix …

 

… the original AOR sound: “Led Zeppelin hard rock with Eagles harmonies and a stratospheric high-tenor voca|”

 

… the absolute power of producers like Mutt Lange (a man raised on radio jingles)

 

… Pat Benatar, the former married bank clerk who wanted to be Robert Plant in a leotard

 

… “AOR stars were all salesmen who talked in quotes”

 

... the many reasons Don Henley fired people on a whim 

 

… Def Leppard’s vision of America built on AOR and cowboy movies

 

… “Chicago and the Tubes never played on their records”

 

… “he ended up butterball-naked in a cocaine threesome sting with two disguised police women”

 

… the producer who had his trout pond realigned as he couldn’t work looking at a garden that wasn’t symmetrical

 

… the story of Toto’s Africa: “tape loops strung round chair-backs and a quick flick through a geography book”

 

… “if this record’s a hit I’ll run naked down Sunset Boulevard”.

 

Order a copy of ‘Raised On Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine & Payola – the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Raised-Radio-Paul-Rees/dp/1408721112

 

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There’s a particular kind of conversation about music that happens between friends who’ve spent a lifetime immersed in it-not as distant critics, but as participants in the culture. That’s the atmosphere you’ll find in Word In Your Ear, a podcast from Mark Ellen, David Hepworth, and Alex Gold. With a collective eighty years of writing and broadcasting for titles like Smash Hits and Mojo, and shows from "The Old Grey Whistle Test" to VH-1, they don’t just recount history; they unpack the stories behind it with the ease of a shared laugh. This podcast grew naturally from their work on the late, great magazine The Word, where they began recording over thirteen years ago, building a dedicated following who found something genuinely special in the mix. Each episode weaves together music, commentary, history, and interviews, moving seamlessly from deep-dive analysis of a seminal album to a frank chat with a surprising guest, all delivered with the warmth and wit of a late-night chat. It feels less like a formal show and more like you’ve been invited to pull up a chair in a room where the anecdotes are plentiful and the expertise is worn lightly. The result is a consistently engaging listen that treats music not as a museum piece but as a living, breathing part of our lives.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Word In Your Ear
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